


Leaving Here With You

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [20]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas Eve, Coming Out, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Prompt Fill, holiday fic, pricemarsh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28015014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: “I’m sorry,” Kate starts babbling as soon as she’s over the threshold. “I didn’t know where else to go; the dorms are closed until after New Years and–”“Hey, hey,” Chloe says soothingly, pulling Kate gently into her arms. “I’m glad you came here. I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all. But I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.”Kate hiccups something between a laugh and a sob into Chloe’s shoulder as she hugs her back so hard that Chloe’s ribs ache. “I missed you, too,” she mumbles wetly.---Kate needs a place to stay. Chloe has one, sort of.
Relationships: Kate Marsh/Chloe Price
Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656067
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Leaving Here With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainboq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainboq/gifts).



> Rainboq prompted me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella) with "I need a place to stay" and pricemarsh. Title from the Brian Fallon song If Your Prayers Don't Get to Heaven.
> 
> CW for homophobia, referenced domestic abuse, non-graphic domestic abuse, and shitty family dynamics in general.

When Chloe answers the door at 9pm on Christmas Eve, she isn’t expecting to see her girlfriend. She especially isn’t expecting to see her looking tear-stained and puffy-eyed in her best church clothes, soaked to the skin and carrying a hastily packed backpack. 

“Kate! What’s wrong?” she asks, heart immediately hammering anxiously in her chest. 

Kate barely manages to get the words out. “I need a place to stay.” 

“O-of course, yeah.” Chloe holds the door open and steps back, ushering her inside. It’s too cold and rainy outside for Kate to be standing there without a heavy coat. 

“I’m sorry,” Kate starts babbling as soon as she’s over the threshold. “I didn’t know where else to go; the dorms are closed until after New Years and–” 

“Hey, hey,” Chloe says soothingly, pulling Kate gently into her arms. “I’m glad you came here. I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all. But I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.” 

Kate hiccups something between a laugh and a sob into Chloe’s shoulder as she hugs her back so hard that Chloe’s ribs ache. “I missed you, too,” she mumbles wetly. 

“What’s going on?” David barks from the living room over the sound of the television. “Shut the damn door, girlie; you’re letting all the heat out!” 

Chloe gives Kate an extra squeeze, feeling the way she tenses at David’s gruff voice. She kicks out one foot, pushing the door loudly shut. 

“Who is it?” Joyce asks, poking her head out of the kitchen, her hands still dripping soap suds. Her eyebrows rise in concern when she sees the state that Kate is in. “Kate, darlin’!” she exclaims, leaving the kitchen and wiping off her hands on a dishcloth. “What’s the matter?” 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Madsen,” Kate says through a fresh wave of tears. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your family so close to Christmas. I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead; she took my phone.” 

Chloe’s heart sinks down to her toes and her head starts buzzing numbly. Shit. She’s been dreading this moment ever since she and Kate started dating. “Your mom?” 

Kate nods, looking heartbroken. She turns to Chloe. “I didn’t mean to tell her anything,” she says in an agonized rush. “It just slipped out. One of my cousins came out over Thanksgiving, and she was talking all about how he was going to hell and I just meant to defend him and… and… It just slipped out.” Kate’s mouth tightens into a pained snarl. “She was just so convinced that none of her perfect daughters could be ‘like that,’ so convinced it was something his parents did wrong and that he would go to hell, and I couldn’t let her. I couldn’t let her keep saying those things as if she wasn’t talking about her own daughter, too.”

“So she kicked you out,” Chloe says numbly. 

Kate nods again, and Joyce’s frown deepens as she sweeps in to put her own arm around Kate’s shoulders. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, Katie, darlin’. I’m sure your mother will come to her senses–” she glares at Chloe when Chloe snorts angrily “– _eventually_ ,” she continues determinedly, “but until then you just stay right here with us. Have you had supper?” 

Kate shakes her head. “Th-thank you, Mrs. Madsen. I’m sorry to impose, I just didn’t know where else to go; the dorms are closed over break.” 

“Never you mind; it’s no imposition. Chloe, would you set up a dinner plate for our guest?” 

“Yeah, ‘course.” Chloe lets go of Kate and looks her up and down. She’s sopping wet and shivering. “You wanna grab a shower and warm up while I’m heating the leftovers? You can borrow some of my pjs if you need a change of clothes.”

“Thank you,” Kate says once again, pressing her cold lips gratefully against Chloe’s cheek as Joyce returns to the kitchen and starts bustling about in the refrigerator. “I managed to grab some things before she locked me out, but I don’t know if I’ve even got a complete outfit apart from what I’m wearing.” 

Chloe scowls. “I can’t believe your dad let her do this. And on Christmas Eve; what the actual fuck.” 

Kate shrugs sadly. “He tried to reason with her, but when she gets like this…” She sighs. “Maybe he’ll be able to talk her around, eventually. At least enough that I can go back and get the rest of my things.”

“He’d fucking better. And if he doesn’t, we’ll break in and take them back,” Chloe promises. 

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” 

“Parents kicked you out, huh?” David says, suddenly looming in the doorway with a nearly empty beer bottle dangling from one hand. “That’s rough.”

“I… Yes, it is, Mr. Madsen.” 

David nods contemplatively, eyes darting back and forth between Kate and Chloe, and Chloe wants to go over and smack his eyes shut. “Well. Sorry t’hear it. I s’pose we can fix up the couch for you ‘til the dorms reopen.” 

It’s more than Chloe expected from him but less than Kate deserves. “Kate can stay in my room. We’re both adults.” 

David’s expression sours. “Miss Marsh can stay on the _couch_ ,” he replies. “Your mother and I already tolerated enough shenanigans when that Amber girl used to stay over. This isn’t a bordello.” 

Chloe’s anger flares and she steps forward to say something well-deserved but ill-advised, halted only by Kate’s gentle hand on her elbow. “I can sleep on the couch,” Kate says. “I don’t mind. I fell asleep on the bus ride here; the couch will be much more comfortable, I’m sure. Thank you, Mr. Madsen.” 

Step-douche nods at that and disappears back into the living room like some vile ghost. Chloe wishes he’d fuck off and find some other house to haunt. Chloe’s distracted from her thoughts by the soft, cool press of Kate’s lips on the corner of her jaw. Kate slips her fingers into Chloe’s and gives them a squeeze. “I’m going to go shower and get changed. Maybe I’ll feel a bit more stable then. We can figure everything else out afterward, okay?” 

“Okay,” Chloe says, turning to kiss Kate back, just a light peck at the edge of her lips. “I’ll heat up some food for you. We can talk it out once you’re warm and dry with a full stomach.”

Kate nods. “I’m probably going to cry a whole lot,” she warns. “I feel sort of numb right now, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last before I break down again.”

“I’ve got two good shoulders,” Chloe tells her. “You can cry on them all you need. I’ve got your back, Angel.”

Kate already looks a bit teary when she pulls Chloe in for a hug. “I should be calling _you_ Angel. You’re the one saving my life here. I don’t know what I would have done tonight if I didn’t have you to run to.”

Kate wouldn’t have to run anywhere if it weren’t for Chloe, but Chloe knows that if she says that out loud Kate will only deny it, so she gives Kate a squeeze and sends her upstairs. Chloe busies herself in the kitchen, trying to focus on setting up the best dinner she can for her girlfriend rather than on the bottomless anger welling up inside of her.

“I just can’t imagine,” Joyce sighs. “And on Christmas Eve, no less! I thought you said they were Christians. What good Christian woman would throw her daughter out on Christmas Eve?”

Chloe shrugs because if she speaks she’ll only shout, and she doesn’t want Kate to hear her yelling and get upset.

Joyce stares at Chloe’s tight shoulders for a moment, her brow furrowed and jaw tensed in contemplation, and she gently takes the plate from Chloe’s hands and puts it into the microwave. “You know that I love you, Chloe. Don’t you?” 

Chloe nods, feeling like she might cry or be sick or very possibly both. It isn’t fair. Kate’s the good one. Kate deserves a family that loves and protects her. She deserves better than her mother’s rejection, her father’s inadequacy, Chloe’s bony shoulders to cry on, David’s barely-there tolerance. She deserves the world, and Chloe doesn’t know how to give it to her.

“Oh, Chloe.” Joyce pulls her into a gentle hug, and Chloe’s upset enough that she lets her, sobbing wetly into her mother’s shoulder before she can stop herself. “Chloe, Chloe. We’ll take good care of that girl. She can stay here as long as it takes.”

“Step–”

“I’ll talk to David. Don’t you worry about anythin’, Darlin’.”

Chloe wants to say something cutting about why hasn’t Joyce ‘talked to David’ about not berating her constantly, not invading her privacy, not smacking her around whenever she talks back to him rather than take his shit. But she can hear the shower turning off upstairs and she doesn’t want to get them both kicked out on Christmas Eve with nowhere to go. “Thanks, mom,” she mumbles, wiping her eyes as she pulls out of the embrace. The microwave beeps and Chloe goes to check on the food.

Kate comes downstairs a few minutes later with damp hair hanging around her shoulders, wearing one of her own sleep shirts paired with a severely oversized pair of Chloe’s pajama pants. She’s rolled the cuffs several times and they still drag on the floor. She looks soft and sweet, and Chloe just wants to wrap her up in the protective warmth of her arms and keep her safe forever, never let her go. Chloe draws back the chair in front of Kate’s steaming dinner plate. “Hope you’re hungry. Joyce always makes enough food to feed the whole town around the holidays.”

Kate sits and picks up her fork, giving Chloe a bigger smile than Chloe would’ve expected considering how traumatizing Kate’s night has been so far. “You know, I wasn’t sure I would have an appetite at all, but I’m actually _famished_.” She scoops up a big dollop of mashed potatoes and gobbles it down, closing her eyes in bliss. Chloe has to smile. Kate really is just too cute. She reaches over and thumbs away a smudge of gravy at the corner of Kate’s mouth. “Your mom’s a really good cook.”

“When she has time, yeah. I, uh. I’m actually a pretty decent cook, too. Had to pick up some of her _skillz_ when it was just the two of us and she was pulling doubles at the diner all the time, y’know?”

“Hmm, good to know.” Kate slowly sets down her fork. “You know… I keep thinking I should feel worse. I should feel worse, shouldn’t I?”

“Probably hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“Maybe. I keep thinking: I should be breaking down, my mother threw me out of the house, my sisters were crying, she’s going to tell them horrible things about me, my father failed to protect me… Most of my life is in that house. My phone, my computer, _Alice_. But all I can feel is relieved.”

“ _Relieved_.” 

Kate nods pensively. “Relieved, and grateful.” She shrugs. “My family knows now. There’s no big secrets left to hide from them. I can stop worrying about what’s going to happen when they find out, because it’s already happened. I can just be my complete self now and not have to worry that it’ll get back to them somehow.” She places her hand over Chloe’s and smiles softly at her. “And grateful because I have you. Because I have a place to go and a person to go to. So many people don’t have that, but I do, and I’m so, so grateful that it’s you.”

Chloe sniffs a little even though she’s not crying - she’s _not_ \- and shifts her hand to lock her fingers with Kate’s. “I’m the one who’s grateful for you. I… I wish I had a better place for you to go. Without…” She flails her free hand inarticulately. “Fuckin’ family drama. Without having to look over your damn shoulder in case Sergeant Dickhead’s getting his rage on.” 

Kate squeezes Chloe’s hand. “Maybe… Maybe this can be a good thing. Maybe it can be an opportunity for both of us. I was thinking that when I graduate, I’ll want to move out of my parents’ place anyway, find an apartment of my own… I was, um. I was planning to ask if you wanted to join me.” 

Chloe blinks rapidly, struggling to keep up. “Wait, like… Get an apartment together? Like, _move in_ together?” 

Kate nods shyly. “If you wanted. And now… Maybe it makes sense to start looking sooner. I don’t know if they’re going to keep paying for my dorm room now that I’ve been kicked out, and if they don’t… I mean, even if my dad is willing to keep paying for it, it’s probably better for me to get some distance.” She blushes. “If you want to, of course. It’s okay if you don’t; I didn’t mean to spring this on you so suddenly. I was going to work up to it, try to get a sense of what you wanted to do, if you even _wanted_ to live with me–”

Chloe leans over and kisses Kate hard on the cheek to interrupt her spiral. “I’d love to.” 

Kate lights up. “Really?” 

“ _Really_. Seriously. I can’t think of anything I’d like better. Our own place? Just you and me, able to decorate shit the way we want, to not have to lie or hide anything or walk on eggshells to keep from pissing off our parents?? Hella _yes_ , I want that!”

“We probably won’t be able to afford anything too nice, and we’ll have to get jobs, but–” 

“Fuck, I’m game if you are. I’ll wait tables at the fucking Two Whales if I have to.” Chloe shuts up so that Kate can kiss her. “You and me, Katydid.” 

Kate rests her head on Chloe’s shoulder. “You and me. We’re going to make it work.” 

“Hell yeah, we are.” Chloe presses another kiss into Kate’s wet hair, and she sits and holds Kate and, for the first time in years, looks forward to the future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Rain for the prompt and to all of you for reading!


End file.
